


like a thorn of a red flower ; lodged within me

by newlovecassette



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, F/F, Morally Ambiguous Character, pinkwoo if u squint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 01:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newlovecassette/pseuds/newlovecassette
Summary: Yaebin has always been intrigued by danger. She never expected the danger to be intrigued back.





	like a thorn of a red flower ; lodged within me

Yaebin had just wanted to have normal night. 

She truly just wanted to leave work and walk home, and arrive at her apartment. She wanted to heat up some ramen and lie in bed, watching Jeopardy, like she did every night. 

She certainly didn’t want to be sitting in a metallic room lit by fluorescent lamps, being stared down by a pair of detectives that looked like they could snap her in half.

“I’ll tell you again.” Yaebin threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know where she is.” 

“Miss Kang, respectfully, you spent the entire night with this very dangerous criminal.” Detective Kwon leaned across the table. “I don’t understand how you can just not know.” 

Yaebin groaned. 

“For the fiftieth time, she knocked me out and left me in an alleyway! I called you all immediately! I am trying my very best to help you guys.”

“Yuri.” The male detective said, sternly. “Don’t go so hard on her, she’s obviously had a rough night.” 

“This girl is the only lead we’ve had in months on her. Excuse me if I go a little hard.” the female detective snapped. 

“Can I go home yet?” Yaebin mumbled, fiddling with the buttons on her jacket. “I would really like to change into some clothes that aren’t stained with blood.”

“No. You need to stay here until we can set you up with a surveillance team. She could come back to eliminate you. You are a witness.She leaves no witnesses.” The male detective said. “We can bring you a change of clothes, but you’re sleeping at the station today, sorry.”

Yaebin put her head in her hands. 

She never wanted any of this. 

It had begun like any other night.

It had been another late shift at the coffee house, and she was exhausted. When she had walked to the bus stop, there was a sign dangling on the bench.

_“Stop closed.”_

“Shit.” she murmured, realizing her new dilemma.  
She would have to walk home. 

It wasn’t that Yaebin didn’t have the physical energy to take a walk. The problem lied in the fact that the only route home was through a dangerous neighborhood. She considered, for a second, the possibility of calling an Uber. But her phone was almost dead, and she definitely did not have the money.

Yaebin checked her phone. 2%.

Quickly, she typed out a text.

yaeb: _nunu_

yaeb: _i have to walk home tonight_

yaeb: _n my phones gonna diiiiie_

yaeb: _so if i get murdered_

yaeb: _you can have my 3ds_

Stuffing her phone in her bag, she paused to consider what the best route home would be. 

Cutting through the alleyways would certainly be faster, but she decided that walking down the main street of the red light district would be a lot easier and safer. Lots of light, lots of people. 

She sighed, taking a resolute breath. She’d walked home alone before, and this would be fine. She would be fine.

When her and Eunwoo had decided to get an off-campus place to live, it had initially been a quirky adventure. Living in a quirky apartment in a strange neighborhood was all fun and games, until they started hearing gunshots out the window at night, and realized that the “DVD shop” they lived above only sold a certain type of movie. Nonetheless, their apartment was extremely cheap for its size, and not far from school. Yaebin just had to deal with the red and blue lights of passing police cars drifting through her bedroom windows at night. It was an okay deal.

As she walked down the street, she took a glance at her surroundings. Not many people were out this night. The burning neon lights of the strip clubs and sex shops lit the whole street like a scene out of a Wong Kar-Wai film—everything was edged with bright reds and chilly blues. A couple men were standing around smoking, and some women in fur coats and high heels were chatting them up, but that was pretty typical for a night like this. 

Yaebin turned the volume up on her headphones. About seven more blocks to go. 

“Sorry, excuse me!” a voice suddenly yelled out. Yaebin turned around. A man, dressed in a neatly tailored suit was running right at her. She stepped uncomfortably to the side as he ran past, hearing his heavy breathing. He was clutching a bright red briefcase to his chest, and was moving like he was fighting for his life, feet hurriedly slapping against the ground. He looked back behind him, turning around the street corner.

How odd, Yaebin thought, but she tried to push that to the side. Not her business. She just needed to get home. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, looking back down at the ground. 

The night air smelled like cigarettes, the cold breeze blowing the smoke from groups of conversing men down Yaebin’s way. She tried just to think about the music as she kicked her feet along the sidewalk, punting an empty Coke can out into the street, hearing the metal skid across the concrete.

“Hey, you.” A female voice cut through the heavy bass blasting through her headphones.  
Nervously, Yaebin turned again, hoping she wasn’t going to accosted by a hooker. A woman was standing behind her. Her face was framed neatly by long hair and a fringe, and she wore a suit with a long dark coat. She looked far too professional to be in this part of town—but she didn’t look lost, either.

Yaebin pulled out one earbud.

“What?” 

“Have you perhaps seen a man carrying a red briefcase come by recently?” the woman asked, giving a pleasant smile. 

“Um, yeah, actually. He ran down there, and then he turned that way.” Yebin pointed just past the grody diner that rested on the nearby street corner. “Are you a cop or something?” she asked, curiosity getting the best of her.  
The woman looked her up and down with a smile that was almost devilish. 

“You could say that. Thanks for your help.” she said, peering down the street, seemingly already paying attention to something else. 

“Oh, sure… of course.” Yebin replied, slowly putting her earbud back in. 

The woman gave her a little wave, and started to walk down the street with long, confident strides—like someone that had a place they needed to be, but knew they were perfectly capable of getting there on time. 

What an odd string of encounters. Yaebin tried to shake it off, continuing walking her way home, playing with her keys inside her coat pocket. 

It was then when she spotted something. 

Up ahead, turning a corner, was a small animal. A cat. 

Random stray cats were, of course, typical for this area. But this cat had a collar, one that Yaebin almost instantly recognized. It was glittery and holographic, eye catching and ridiculous. It was, of course, the one that Eunwoo had bought for her very own pet cat, Mumu. The cat was moving with little skittering steps, its paws leading it down the street. When it passed into the warm glow of an overhead streetlamp, Yaebin gasped out loud. The yellowy tones of the fur, the round face—that was definitely her roommate’s darling Mumu. 

Eunwoo loved her cat more than anything. Yaebin coped with it sleeping on her face and sometimes peeing in the shower. Even if its meowing sometimes drove her crazy, she adored her roommates overwhelming affection for her furry friend—a lot of it probably due to the fact that the cat had been a gift from Eunwoo’s girlfriend—and knew that if it got lost or ran away, her friend would be devastated. She cursed herself for most likely leaving her window next to the fire escape open, and started a light jog in the cat’s direction. 

“Mumu!” she called out. “Mumu, it’s me!”

At the sound of its name, the cat turned its little head in Yaebin’s direction. The two of them, animal and human, made eye contact, and Yaebin started running faster, praying the cat wouldn’t attempt an escape. This, of course, was a fruitless hope to have, as the cat, moments within meeting Yaebin’s eyes, also began to run.

“Fuck!” Yaebin cursed under her breath. “Mumu, you asshole, get back here!” The cat’s tiny feet started trotting even faster. “You little shit.” Yaebin hissed at it, legs starting to go as quick as they could carry her. How was one stupid cat so elusive?

The cat looked back, then quickly ducked in between two brick buildings into an alleyway. Yaebin grit her teeth. She had to catch this cat, even if her life depended on it. 

She leaned around the corner of the alleyway, catching her breath. The cat was sitting on its hind legs in between two trash bags, staring ahead at a pool of light that was reaching around another corner. 

Yaebin took a couple careful steps, trying to be as quiet as possible, not wanting to disturb her target. Elegantly, she lifted a foot over an old banana peel and a torn up fashion magazine, trying to make as little noise as she possibly could. As she walked closer to Mumu, she realized she could hear voices from around the corner of the alleyway. 

“P-please, seriously… you don’t have to do this, please.” a male voice pleaded. 

“That’s the thing though. I kind of have to. It’s my job. Just like your job was to get that briefcase away from me, and, well, it seems like you’re not very good at your job, are you?” another voice, feminine and familiar, responded.

“Please! I’ve got a wife at home waiting for me, I’ll give you the briefcase, just please don’t do this!” 

Yaebin’s eyes widened, and a pit in her stomach formed, one of anxiety, but also an overwhelming sense of curiosity. She had always been someone to seek out danger—the first one to test jumping off a cliff into a lake below, the one that snaked a hand out to pet the scary dog instead of recoiling backwards like the other kids. Yaebin had her specific flavors of danger she preferred. The kind that tasted of mystery and adventure, the ones that gave her that feeling at the bottom of her stomach. This hidden exchange in the back of this alleyway tugged at her gut. She wanted to know more. 

Like she was a spy performing a secret mission, Yaebin chose her next few actions carefully. Taking a few more steps, she swooped down with both arms and picked up Mumu as fast as possible. Mumu was a very choosy cat—he enjoyed being held by some, and not by others. Yaebin was one of those others that he would put up resistance against, and she felt it as she wrapped her arms around him. Trying her best, she held his face close to her chest in an attempt to muffle any feline noises of protest that would come from him, feeling his body writhing against her. 

She was just going to take a quick peek around the corner, was all. No big deal. Just one little look. 

Leaning her back against the mossy brick walls of the alleyway, Yaebin tried to crane her neck at the right angle so that she could see past the corner of the building without being in the direct eye-line of whoever she was hearing. 

She really wasn’t sure what she had expected to see. A drug deal? A strange sexual exchange? Almost anything could be happening in the red light district at night, especially jammed in-between two (possibly abandoned) apartment buildings. 

The soft light Mumu had been staring at came from an outdoor lamp, one that was lighting a small patio near a discreet entrance to the building. The patio looked long forgotten—moss between the cracks of the concrete, a shattered glass ashtray on the ground, and a dusty overturned lawn chair decorated the space.

However, in the moment, none of these details were important to Yaebin. 

This was because the first thing her eyes had caught was a woman holding a man at gunpoint. 

It took her a couple seconds, but she recognized them. The man, who was backed up against the wall, was wearing a neatly tailored suit. His hair was mussy and out of place, like he had been running in the wind, and he was clutching a bright red briefcase. The woman had long, dark hair, and though Yaebin could only see her back, she could recognize the lengthy coat she was wearing. It was both the people she had passed on the street just ten minutes earlier.

The woman was wearing tight black leather gloves, and in her hand was a pistol—but it looked different than a usual gun. On its end was a long black tube. Yaebin didn’t know much about guns at all, but her limited database of gun knowledge (mostly based on watching shitty action movies with her roommate) told her that it was a silencer, something to stop the gun from making noise.  
She gulped, feeling beads of sweat crawl down her back, still trying at the same time to wrangle the cat in her arms without making any noise. To be honest, Yaebin wasn’t sure what to do at all. She didn’t want to become a witness to a crime, and certainly not another victim, but her body couldn’t compel itself to move. Her stomach felt like someone was taking an ice cream scoop to her guts—she felt so completely afraid and sweaty that she couldn’t bring her feet to un-plant themselves to move. How was she supposed to deal with this situation? The self-defense class Eunwoo had made them take a few weeks ago at the university certainly hadn’t covered how to deal with serial killers or whatever the living hell this woman was. Yaebin’s thoughts kept racing, swirling around in her head in an endless spiral. 

Unfortunately, the thought process of deciding what to do took up all of Yaebin’s time that could’ve been used on executing an escape.  
She heard a noise, a slightly muffled bang, followed by a thud. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw it—a body, crumpling in on itself, hitting the wall. Crimson red blood was staining the white shirt under the tightly fitting suit jacket, and the hands once tightly clutching a red briefcase went limp, flopping at their sides. 

Mumu was already wriggling in her arms in an attempt to escape, but when the bang sounded through the narrow walls of the alleyway, he stopped for a second, startled. Then he made a rather bold move—he firmly clamped his jaw around Yaebin’s hand, biting hard. Yaebin couldn’t help it. The sudden, sharp pain, momentarily distracted her from everything else happening around her, and she let out a yelp. 

In retrospect, if she hadn’t done this, she would have enough time to run. She wouldn’t have been involved in this mess in the first place. But, unfortunately, God had seemed to line up a bunch of inconveniences like dominoes that led to this one moment. The moment that the woman with the gun heard her scream, and turned around. 

The tension in the air was as think as butter, and the cold voice of the killer just a few feet away from her sliced through it. 

“Who’s there?”

Yaebin considered running, but she didn’t want to risk being shot at. 

“I have a gun, if you didn’t notice. Come out with your hands up.” 

There was a pause, thick layers of silence filling the cold night once more.

It wasn’t entirely intentional, but Yaebin found her voice crawling out of her, small and tiny. 

“I can’t put my hands up.”

“Excuse me?”

“I-I can’t put my hands up.” Yaebin took a nervous step out into the pool of light and into the direct eyeline of the woman. “I’m holding a cat.” 

As if on cue, Mumu furiously waved his limbs, claws digging into Yaebin’s arms, and she let out another noise of pain. 

The woman held out her gun directly at Yaebin, and her face wrinkled in what could’ve been shock or disgust. 

“You?”  
Sweat crawled down the back of Yaebin’s neck.

“Um, yes. I’m so sorry, I, uh, was just trying to grab my roommate’s cat, I saw it go down this alleyway, I didn’t mean to see any of this. I’m so—Ouch!” Mumu delivered another bite to her finger. “Mumu, stop it! I mean—I’ll forget all of this, I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry. I’ll leave. Please just let me go home.”

Despite the coldness in her eyes, the woman cracked a smirk.

“You’re funny for thinking I’d let you go home.” 

“Please, I…”

“But I won’t kill you.” She looked down at her right wrist, still pointing her gun at the terrified girl in front of her, and checked her watch. “You helped me tonight. You told me where he was.” she said, nodding her head back at the crumpled corpse behind her. “This job would’ve taken a lot longer if it wasn’t for you.” 

“You’re… welcome?” Yaebin says, head whirring with a cacophony of thoughts. 

The woman began dissembling her gun, not breaking eye contact with Yaebin as she did. 

“You’re coming with me. Leave the cat.”

Yaebin gasped. 

“I can’t! My roommate will be so mad!”

The woman looked at her with wide eyes, and Yaebin realized that complaining about her roommate might not be the right choice in this situation. She opened her mouth to reluctantly agree to put the cat down, but was surprisingly interrupted.

“Ok, fine. He can stay in the car.” She gestured, stepping in front of Yaebin, giving her a quick look up and down. “Come with me.” She tugged Mumu from Yaebin’s arms, the cat surprisingly putting up no protest. 

Yaebin briefly considered her options. She could say ‘fuck it’ and run, but she was never really good at running long distances, and this woman—she meant business. She could take out Yaebin in seconds. Her chances were far better sticking around and trying to talk her way to freedom. Plus, this felt like a once in a lifetime experience. Not everyone gets to be kidnapped by a dangerous criminal, right?

Nervously, she took a step forward, swallowing all her anxiety.

“Ok. Where are we going?” 

“Name.”

“What?”

“Tell me your name.”

Yaebin shifted uncomfortably on the leather seat of the car, looking back to see Mumu somehow peacefully lying in the backseat. 

The woman took off her coat, throwing it behind her. It landed next to the cat. She turned to glare at Yaebin, and Yaebin couldn’t help but notice how pretty she is. A murder really shouldn’t be this pretty. 

“Go on.” She twisted the key in the ignition. “I don’t have all night.”

“I’m Yaebin.” she finally says, hands twisting in her lap.

“Nice to meet you, Yaebin.” The car started moving, and somehow the cat didn’t seem to mind at all. (It’s a little offensive, honestly. Yaebin could never get Mumu to be this quiet or calm.) “You can call me Roa.”

“Roa.” Yaebin repeated. How mysterious. “Your car is, um… nice.”

“It’s not mine. It’s his. Rather, it was.” It took Yaebin a second to realize who “he” was, but when she thinks of the slumped over body they had left in the alleyway, she found her heart rate rising. Roa looked ahead at the road, turning a sharp corner. “Are you hungry?” 

“I mean, I work at a café, and I just got off work. I get, uh free food, so not really hungry, I guess is what I’m saying.”

“We’ll eat later then.” Roa hummed nonchalantly. 

“We’re gonna eat?” 

“I’ve got to make a stop at the diner at some point.”

Yaebin looked out the window, looking at the familiar night lights, seeing the Chinese restaurant she remembered third-wheeling Eunwoo and Jieqiong at. 

“This is my neighborhood.” she said, not really thinking about the dangers of telling your kidnapper the location of where you live. 

“Hm. Odd part of town for a girl like you to live.” 

“It’s affordable.”

“Sure, but it’s the kind of place you run into dangerous people.” Roa kept her eyes on the road, but a smirk curls on her lips. “Like me, I suppose. You could get hurt, you know.”

“I’m fine. I can handle myself.” Yaebin crossed her arms. “You don’t know me.” 

Roa didn’t say anything. She made another turn. They were starting to head into a classier part of town—the part with buildings that loom like giants, with their hundreds of tiny windows glowing. She pulled the car up in front of a towering skyscraper. A couple of businessmen are loitering outside, but it’s late and it’s quiet for the most part. 

“Second stop of the night.” Roa announced, rather matter-of-fact. She reached over an arm in front of Yaebin’s chest, opening up a glove compartment, pulling out a pistol. Yaebin watched, fear chilling down her spine as Roa tucked the gun inside her pants. “Come on. I’ve got a schedule to maintain.” She opened up the car door, boots clicking on the pavement as she walked around the front of the car to Yaebin’s side, opening the door. 

“You want me to come with you?” Yaebin sputtered, instinctively leaning back from Roa’s piercing eyes.

“Can’t have you running on me. Come on now, it’ll be quick. I’m good at my job.”

Yaebin’s mind didn’t want her to stand up, but she does anyway. Roa tossed some hair over her shoulder, crooking her head as if to say ‘come on already’. 

They started walking towards the large glass doors of the skyscraper. It reminded Yaebin of being a kid again—going to go visit her dad in his big office building, riding the elevator to the top floor with her mom, getting free candy from the receptionist. A gust of cold air blew as they walked through the entrance, and a businessman exiting gave them an odd look. Roa certainly looked like she could fit in, trim and proper, suit jacket tailored perfectly to the slope of her her shoulders—but Yaebin, Yaebin was in a hoodie and jeans, wearing a band T-shirt she had stolen out of Eunwoo’s drawer after she had forgotten to do laundry, three-year old sneakers on her feet. Roa didn’t seem to notice the stare, and motioned for Yaebin to hurry her steps with a crook of her finger. 

“We’re taking the elevator to the fourteenth floor.” With professional strides, she walked to the elevator, punching a button, crossing her arms as if this was yet another boring day. The door opened with a soft ding. For someone so capable of destruction, Roa wasn’t really scary, Yaebin thought. She had the aura of any woman trying to get through a day at work. Though—was that the scary part? That this woman standing in front of her was capable of ending someone else’s life and she seemed to think of it like Yaebin’s aunt thought of working as a receptionist. 

They were in the elevator now. The doors closed shut, leaving just the two of them in this tiny space. Yaebin wondered what she was supposed to be doing at this moment. Sleeping? Eating ramen out of the novelty mug Eunwoo had bought her during their Disney trip?  
“You said this was your job.” Yaebin said, that itch of curiosity prompting her to ask a question. “What exactly is your job?”  
Roa leaned back against the wall of the elevator. 

“I’m a hitman.”

“Hitman?”

“Murderer-for-hire. Contract killer. Whatever you want to call it.”

“So you…?”

“I kill people for money.” Yaebin glanced up at the little LED display on the wall. They were at the sixth floor. The skin on her arms felt cold. “Best in Korea.” Roa continued, almost proud. “People—you know, CEOs, political figures, others, they need people gone. They need things done. I take care of business. I tie up loose ends.” 

Yaebin stared. Roa was examining her nail beds as she said this all. She looked up, meeting Yaebin’s eyes. 

“Don’t look so surprised.” Roa said, an eyebrow quirking. “You saw me kill someone, didn’t you?” She paused, examining Yaebin’s face. Yaebin wasn’t sure what to say. It was interesting, yet terrifying, to be facing this other person—it was like when she would read articles about mysterious plane disappearances or strange accidents. Something morbid, and terrifying, but she couldn’t look away. She changed her mind—Roa was scary after all. 

“Well.” Roa reached for her gun and glanced at the rising floor numbers. “Get ready. You’re about to see me do it again.” 

There was another ding as her words sunk in, and the elevator doors slid open to reveal an empty hallway, huge glass windows showing off a view of the city at night, lights twinkling far below. 

Again, Yaebin considered running. She could wait until Roa stepped out, and then close the elevator doors fast and head back down. But where would she go? Yaebin couldn’t drive, anyway, and they were far from the apartment by now. But most of all, that morbid interest kept rising in her stomach. She was being drawn in by Roa—whoever Roa was, whatever Roa was hiding behind those cold eyes and that little smirk. She breathed in, and followed her out the elevator doors, skin prickling with something, anticipation or fear or both.

“Down the hall.” Roa said. “See that door down there? Go knock on it.”

“Are you using me as bait?” Yaebin gasped. 

“I could’ve killed you in that alleyway, but I didn’t. So go knock on the damn door.” 

Yaebin swallowed, looking down the hall at the mahogany doorway at the end. Was she about to become an accomplice to murder? She supposed she was, yet she felt oddly removed from the whole thing, like she was drifting through a dream and could wake up at any second. Her footsteps echoed loud through the hall as she began to move, legs dragging themselves as if being tugged on like marionette strings. Roa followed, a few paces behind. 

There was a plaque on the door. ‘Mr. Kim’. Yaebin knocked a fist just under it. Once, then a pause, listening for noise, then a second time. 

Silence for a few moments, then someone responded. 

“Yes?” A man’s voice said, just a bit muffled by the wall between them.

Yaebin looked back at Roa, who was attaching the silencer to her gun, and mouthed “What now?”

“Make something up.” Roa said in her ear, and her husky tones make Yaebin’s toes curl, but she tries to ignore it all, because she’s supposed to be talking to a man who will be probably dead in a few minutes. 

“Delivery?” Yaebin said, giving Roa a confused shrug. 

“I didn’t order anything.” replies the voice from the other side.

“It’s a surprise.” 

Quiet again, for a few seconds, and Yaebin swore she could hear the noise of someone scrambling to open desk drawers, looking for someone. 

“Well… come in.” the disembodied voice finally replied, and Yaebin placed a sweaty hand on the doorknob. Roa was backed against the wall, past the view of anyone sitting in the office, holding her gun next to her cheek. The door swung open, and Yaebin was greeted with an immediate bang. 

It was loud, and sudden, and Yaebin was so surprised that she barely even noticed the bullet just barely whizzing by her ear. The man in the office was standing, with shaking hands clutching a pistol, pointing it right at Yaebin, and he just had fired at her. Yaebin had ducked in surprise, and the man didn’t seem to be very experienced with the gun, because he would’ve missed her whether she’d ducked or not. It takes a couple seconds for it to hit her, but Yaebin’s chest started heaving when she realized what had just happened. She had almost died. A bullet had been fired at her, and she had almost died. Fuck. 

“You don’t look like the pictures.” The man said, and his voice was wavering like the fear in it was choking its way out.  
“That’s because she’s not me.” A hand placed itself on Yaebin’s shoulder, firm. Behind her, was Roa. “Interesting that you’re armed. You knew I was coming.” 

“I was warned.” the man replied, biting his lip. 

“Good for you. Pity. Warnings really just slow me down. They don’t stop the eventual outcome.” Roa said, her voice steely, and her hand still gripped Yaebin’s shoulder, as if she was holding her steady. “And please, don’t beg, or tell me about your wife and kids. I really don’t have time for that tonight. I already dealt with one pleader, and it was such a nuisance.” 

Yaebin’s hand was still on the doorknob, sweaty palms slick against the metal. The office has huge glass windows as well, and she watched as tiny cars moved below, completely unaware of what was happening in the sky above. Why wasn’t Roa taking her hand off her shoulder? She felt something, a force from her hand. Roa was pushing her down, and right as she did, another bang echoed through the empty hall.

Mr. Kim grit his teeth, hands still quivering as he held the gun. He had fired again, and Roa had made sure Yaebin didn’t get hit. Roa stepped past Yaebin, closer to Mr. Kim. 

“You’ve never even fired a gun before, have you?” she said, gloved hand leaving Yaebin’s shoulder. 

“Please.” The man whimpered, and he looked at Yaebin for a second, as if to say ‘help me’. She swallowed, guilt staring to fester in her stomach. Roa looked strange—she looked cocky. Like this was fun, a challenge laid before her that she had to solve. 

Mr. Kim turned, and fired again, and when Roa ducked effortlessly, he lunged at her, grabbing her wrist. Roa gasped, surprise flashing across her eyes—she hadn’t expected this. Yaebin can’t bring herself to move, partially because she doesn’t even know who she’d choose to help, both options seem rather morally dubious, and also because it still doesn’t feel real. It’s like she’s standing on a movie set, watching from the sidelines, behind a camera, as actors play out the parts. 

It seemed once Roa’s rhythm had been thrown off—things were suddenly not to her advantage. The man had pushed her up against a bookcase, with a thud that made several heavy volumes go crashing to the floor. He was tugging on Roa’s gun with a free hand, trying to pull it from her grasp, and in doing so, it fired, another bang (muffled through the silencer) sending a bullet into the ceiling. Just as he managed to tug then from her gloved hand, she kneed him right in-between the legs. As Mr. Kim doubled over in surprise, she kicked over a small table, one which bore an open bottle of whiskey and several shot glasses, putting some distance between them. Mr. Kim, steps staggering to recover, was now holding two guns, and though his manhood may have been besmirched, with the upper hand, he was starting to appear a lot more confident. Roa was now backed up against the desk, and Yaebin watched as her hands scrambled behind her, trying to find something with her eyes still on her prey. 

“You don’t know how to use those things.” Roa said. Was she stalling? Yaebin’s hand was still on the doorknob. She could lock them in here and try to leave. But Roa—it was really like she was an actress in an action movie, strands of hair flying over her face, lips parted as she stared, cold, and calculating at her victim. “You’re too scared to really use them. You only fire out of fear. Now that you have the upper hand, you’re scared to take me out.”

Mr. Kim didn’t say anything, just breathed in like he was trying to steal some confidence from the air itself. Yaebin swore she saw Roa’s hands grip tight around something on the desk. Mr. Kim blinked, eyes all watery and wet.  
“Listen.” He said, careful with his words. “We don’t have to do this.” Still pointing the guns, he backed up, against the big glass windows that look across the city. Yaebin realized that one was slightly ajar, and Mr. Kim knocked his elbow against it, and it opened all the way, the chilly night breeze rushing into the office. Then—he dropped both guns. Out the open window, and down onto the street below. 

“What are you doing?” Roa said angrily. She had something—something sharp—clutched in her gloved hand, but it was behind her back. 

“Evening the playing field. Please—we really don’t have to do this. I have lots of money. We can work out a deal.” He holds shaking hands in the air. “No weapons, just us.”

“You’re an idiot. One gun gone doesn’t stop me.” Roa’s shoulders hunched forward, like a cat about to attack its prey, and suddenly, violently, she lunged. Yaebin watched, horrified, as the glint of metal in Roa’s hand—a letter opener—caught the moonlight as she drove it down into Mr. Kim’s chest. He barely made a noise, it was so fast, all that seemed to pass his lips was a sputter of surprise. She was stabbing him, over and over, blood starting to stain his chest, and also even getting onto Roa’s silken white dress shirt. 

Oh god. Oh god. That was all Yaebin could think. It was different than the gun, because it was so visceral, so there. Right in front of her. She watched as he slumped down, Roa driving the letter opener into his stomach a final time, some blood streaking down the glass of the window, tinting city lights red.  
“An idiot.” Roa repeated, pulling the letter opener from his flesh with a casual tug. She held a gloved hand to his jaw. “You’re an idiot for thinking I don’t always have a backup plan. Perhaps I was cocky, sure. I underestimated you. But I know my job, and I do it well.” 

The light poured through those big glass windows, and Roa turned, making eye contact with Yaebin, whose hand was still on the doorknob. She finally let go to raise her hand to cover her mouth, in shock or in a feeble attempt to stop herself from throwing up. She isn’t even sure which. 

“That was my favorite gun too, you know. Real pity.” Roa said, turning fully around, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket and beginning to wipe down the bloody letter opener. “The messy ones are always the worst.” she sighed, and quirked an eyebrow at Yaebin. “You hungry yet?”


End file.
